


Mental Breakdowns & Hot Chocolate

by eclare_writes



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng Fluff, Christmas Fluff, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, French Kissing, Kissing, Late Night Conversations, Mental Breakdown, Romantic Fluff, Stress Relief, University
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:02:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21867961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eclare_writes/pseuds/eclare_writes
Summary: Mari needs a break please and thank you also they live together and have a cat because they deserve the best. (Also Adrien has glasses because I want him to and I figured his visual deterioration is gonna set in before he's out of lycée)There is some kissing and some innuendos but nothing sexy happens :)
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 4
Kudos: 156





	Mental Breakdowns & Hot Chocolate

**Author's Note:**

> I had a mental breakdown Sunday night while working on my thesis proposal and then wrote this afterwards on thirty minutes of sleep.
> 
> I definitely didn't just put Marinette in my position to comfort myself because I sadly don't have a smoking hot boyfriend.

Adrien swore that he specifically told his girlfriend to not stay up too late working on her project. He almost believed her when she said she’d be in bed before he was even asleep.

The cold sheets that greeted him at 3:48AM as a paw smashed into his cheek told him that

  1. Their cat was an asshole.
  2. He was right to not believe Marinette.



Adrien sat up in bed and rubbed the back of his hand against his eyes, glaring at the cat who had just walked across his face and was now making herself comfortable on the pillow where Marinette’s head should have been. The cat, Shamrock, slowly blinked up at her owner before tucking her head between her paws. Adrien gave a sigh of annoyance at the creature while giving her a loving pat and putting on his glasses.

Making the easy decision to value his girlfriend’s well-being over his sleep schedule, he lazily got out of bed and made his way towards the living room, wincing slightly at the cold floor hitting his feet with every step.

In the dim lighting of their Christmas tree, Adrien could see the figure of Marinette curled against the back of the couch, laptop forgotten on her lap as her shoulders rose and fell with her slow and steady breaths and the occasional snore.

Taking the opportunity to observe her beauty and the melancholic aura she gave off, Adrien leaned against the wall and watched her for a moment before making his way over to the couch and squatting in front of her on the floor. He wondered for a moment if he could move her to their bed without disturbing her, but quickly thought better of it as she rarely made that trip without being woken up immediately.

How could one sleeping face make his heart swell as much as this one did? Adrien noted the way her hair smooshed against the cushions on the side and how her bangs had obviously been pushed back multiple times in frustration as they stuck up at awkward angles. Moving her laptop off of her lap, he saw how her legs stuck out a little beneath the blanket and he recovered them. Her lips were parted as a quiet snore passed through them with every few breaths. The soft light of the tree reflected on the softness of her skin and made her eyelashes look longer as they twitched slightly from a dream. While her face was relaxed, the way her brow was slightly furrowed and the bags under her eyes showed the stress that came with finals. 

Marinette’s senior project for university had been keeping her up like this almost every night as she struggled just to finish conceptualizing it into a ten page paper. To her procrastinating heart’s dismay, her advising professor had made the finished draft due during winter break and she couldn’t seem to focus on it no matter what she did. She had spent many nights frustratedly ranting about how her advisor’s comments didn’t make sense and how he was failing to grasp her concept or how she couldn’t possibly know where the creative process would take her in three months, so she couldn’t say for sure right now.

Adrien gently placed a hand on her arm and rubbed circles when she didn’t immediately stir. After a moment, her eyes screwed tightly shut and her head slowly angled itself towards him before letting her eyes open. 

“Hey,” Adrien whispered.

Marinette responded with a low hum and then ran a hand through her hair. “What time is it?” she asked in a low, gravelly voice as she shifted her weight to see him better.

“Almost four. You should come back to sleep.”

Marinette shook her head a little, “Have… Have to finish my… My thing.”

“So well spoken,” Adrien let the smile reflect in his voice while gently stroking a thumb against her cheek, “I think your  _ thing _ can wait until morning.”

“It was supposed to be done at midnight,” she whined in response.

“Then it’s too late anyways. Let’s go to bed, bugaboo, you’ll be more comfortable there than on the couch.”

Marinette gave her laptop a forlorn look that quickly twisted into something much more pained before a sobbing breath shook her body and she began to cry. Adrien quickly got up and gently squeezed himself between her and the arm of the couch, wrapping his arms around her curled form and tucking her head beneath his chin as she twisted to cry into him.

He held her firmly in place as she let herself get out whatever she needed to. Adrien made quiet shushing sounds to calm her as he stroked her hair and back. He mumbled words of comfort into her ear as her stress and exhaustion finally overtook her.

Adrien had been prepping himself for this moment all week but all of his prepared motivational speeches vanished from his brain as her listened to her cry and felt the trembling of her body on top of his. All that he cared about was holding her and hoping that she never felt this way again (even if he knew she would certainly feel this way again and that he’d be at her side the moment she needed him to be).

He thought that filling her up with hot cocoa, cuddling by the fire, and laughing at bad Christmas movies all week had been relieving some of her stress, but it hadn’t been enough apparently.

He sat and rocked her, listened to her distressed blubbering as she finally showed him just how stressed she was. It broke Adrien’s heart to see her like this, but he knew she needed to get it out before she could go on.

After about ten minutes of her crying, Marinette finally started to calm down, taking deep, shuddering breaths to even out her breathing and stop the tears. Adrien continued to hold her, and when she finally looked up at him after a couple of minutes, he gave her a soft smile and asked, “Do you want me to make you some hot chocolate or tea?”

She gave a tiny nod, responding in a strained and almost gurgled voice that hadn’t yet recovered from the crying, “Hot chocolate would be nice.”

Adrien nodded and stroked her hair before trying to get off the couch, only to have Marinette tighten her grasp around his chest and let out a little whine. Adrien raised an eyebrow and chuckled a little at her reaction, commenting that, “I can’t make hot chocolate if you don’t let me get up, you know.”

Marinette buried her head back into his chest and mumbled something that sounded like, “Dumb cat can’t produce things out of thin air,” before letting him go and sitting up.

Adrien ruffled her hair a little before getting up, returning briefly to her height to push her bangs back and kiss her forehead. As he made his way to the kitchen, he couldn’t think of anything but how swollen her eyes had been and how her cheeks were stained with tears and some mascara she hadn’t removed. He’d seen Marinette cry many times before, but it still hurt to see her like this. Between being Ladybug, university, her internship, her online boutique, being the guardian, and still being an amazing person who helps everyone with everything, he was impressed by how well she managed most of the time. While it hurt to see her break down, he knew that it was better than holding it together all the time.

He stood in front of the stove, staring blankly at the pot as the hot chocolate bubbled inside. He almost didn’t realize he’d made it when he snapped back to reality. He produced their matching set of cat mugs and poured hot chocolate into each one before returning to Marinette, who was, to his dismay, on her laptop again, her eyebrows furrowed and teeth biting her lip.

He placed the hot chocolate on the table in front of her before sitting down next to her and draping an arm over her shoulders.

“I thought you were going to come to bed,” he pressed a kiss to her temple.

“I just gotta… Read through what I have. Make sure it makes sense before I go to bed,” she didn’t look up from her laptop, but gave his leg a gentle pat.

“Want me to look at it?” he sipped his hot chocolate.

“Nah... “ she shut her laptop. “I think I’m beyond caring. It’s just my draft, right?” She put her laptop on the coffee table and picked up her hot chocolate, leaning back on her boyfriend.

“Right.”

“I mean it’s not like there’s going to be a group of twenty people reviewing it for clarity and meaningfulness in a couple of months! No!”

Adrien knew there certainly was going to be just that and that his girlfriend was about to start another stressed rant. “Mari-”

“Or! Or that if, I don’t know, a year down the line, if I hate my project idea, that I can’t just change my mind and work on something else! No, that’s-”

“Marinette.” He put down his hot chocolate.

“Definitely not what’s going to happen! I’m not stuck with my god awful ideas for another eighteen months and graduation isn’t on the line and-”

Adrien didn’t want Marinette to get lost in her stress spiral again, so he cut her off with a kiss, gently pulling her into him with the arm around her shoulders. Once she realized that he was distracting her and not interrupting, Marinette melted into him, holding her hot chocolate tightly so she wouldn’t spill it all over them. He pulled away after a moment, taking her mug from her hands and placing it on the table before kissing her again.

This kiss was much more insistent than the first, both Marinette and Adrien pushing themselves into one another. Adrien’s hands moved to be around her waist and he turned her slightly so he could push her back onto the couch, not breaking the kiss. He knelt between her legs as they wrapped around his back and her hands moved to be draped around his neck.

Before the kiss got too heated, Adrien pulled back a little, remembering what his original goal was.

“We should go to bed,” he said, trying to ignore the way her hands rubbed circles into his neck and hair.

Marinette hummed thoughtfully, looking up at him from behind her lashes, “So forward, Mr. Agreste.”

Trying to not let a blush take over his face, Adrien responded with, “No! No. I mean- Yes. But. Not now? I- You need sleep. Real, actual sleep with a pillow and no kissing.”

Marinette wasn’t even subtle when she started laughing at his sudden awkwardness. Adrien pouted, knowing he should be used to flirty remarks after dating her for years.

In an attempt to get back at her for throwing him off, Adrien reached under her as she continued to laugh and got a good hold on her thighs before sitting up and standing up with her still wrapped around his torso, making her give off a quiet squeak of surprise.

“Adriiiiieeeen I wanna keep kissing you,” she said as he carried her towards their bedroom. She made sure to make her point clear as she planted kisses all over his face and whatever else she could reach.

Adrien plopped her down on the bed and sighed tiredly as she refused to let go of him.

“We can kiss when you wake up, but I don’t want any more kisses until you have at least five hours in you,” he said in a falsely stern voice, giving a “serious” nod so she knew he meant business.

“Or you could put  _ something else _ in me,” she whispered into his ear, tugging him closer.

Adrien let out a strangled gasp of surprise before pulling away harshly, making her let go of him, to which she flopped back on the bed with a dramatic sigh.

“You’re no fun,” she mumbled as she tugged the sheets over herself.

Adrien started climbing in on his own side after removing his glasses, shooing Shamrock off the bed as she let out a rebellious meow. “I just want a well-rested bug for my smooching pleasure, that’s all.”

Marinette sighed and snuggled into his chest once he was settled. “Can I at least get a goodnight kiss?” she asked with a yawn.

Adrien happily obliged and their lips met for a quick and chaste kiss before she tucked herself back into him.

“You know, you get kind of needy and grumpy when you’re this tired,” he said jokingly.

Marinette didn’t respond.

Worried he’d offended her, Adrien gently stroked her hair saying, “Hey, I was joking. It’s cute. I love you.”

No response.

Adrien went to say something else before he heard a tiny snore come up from below him.

With a smile, he let himself relax into the pillows.

“Sleep tight, little bug.”


End file.
